I knew it. 'Tweren't for nothing that old Shep's been
howling all morning. An' last night I heard the screech-owl give the
death-cry, and there were something white as run across the yard
yesterday; 'tweren't a cat nor a stoat, 'twere something. The fowls knew
'twere something; they all drew off to one side. Ay, there's been
warnings. I knew it were a-coming."
The young woman's eyes clouded with pity. The old thing sitting there so
white and shrunken had once been a merry, noisy child, playing about in
lanes and hay-lofts and farmhouse garrets; that had been eighty odd years
ago, and now she was just a frail old body cowering under the approaching
chill of the death that was coming at last to take her. It was not
probable that much could be done for her, but Emma hastened away to get
assistance and counsel. Her husband, she knew, was down at a
tree-felling some little distance off, but she might find some other
intelligent soul who knew the old woman better than she did. The farm,
she soon found out, had that faculty common to farmyards of swallowing up
and losing its human population. The poultry followed her in interested
fashion, and swine grunted interrogations at her from behind the bars of
their styes, but barnyard and rickyard, orchard and stables and dairy,
gave no reward to her search. Then, as she retraced her steps towards
the kitchen, she came suddenly on her cousin, young Mr. Jim, as every one
called him, who divided his time between amateur horse-dealing, rabbit-
shooting, and flirting with the farm maids.
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